Team Classification Review

FDJ has been close to being the best team in several stages of the Tour in 2011 and today – thanks to William Bonnet’s 10th, Arnold Jeannesson’s 11th and Gianni Meersman’s 15th in the stage to Lavaur – the French squad has achieved that coup. These three all finished with the same time as the winner in stage 11 and Marc Madiot’s squad topped this classification on the eve of the rendezvous with the mountains in the Pyrenees.
The overall rankings in the team classification, however, remains unchanged an Europcar will once again wear yellow race numbers in the Tour de France.
Voeckler’s squad will have a fight on its hand to retain this position, however, as they are only 32” ahead of Leopard-Trek and 1’02” ahead of RadioShack (with only six men still in the race)., and 1’18” ahead of Rabobank.
Obviously we will now see the Schleck brothers and their team-mates step forward and raise the rank of the team from Luxembourg thanks to the climbs of stage 12.